A year ago this month I attended a fantastic show. The event commemorated Art Martel’s 50^th birthday.  The show’s headliner Nick Curran had been barnstorming all over California with his band the Low Lifes. This was their last West Coast appearance before making the long trip back to Texas. It was a thrill to see Nick as I have been a fan of his music for some time. It was also great to see him back on the scene after his recent struggles with tongue cancer. Nothing it seems has been easy for Nick over the past few months. In the spring of 2010, weeks before he was diagnosed with cancer, his father passed away. After his return trip to Texas, Nick had a reoccurrence of cancer. He has been forced off the road again. It has been a tough couple of years for this young man. I dedicate this piece to Nick Curran.  You can donate to help with Nick's medical expenses via PayPal, using the email nickykay77@yahoo.com.

I was standing off to the side of the stage at a VFW post in the San Gabriel Valley last Sunday afternoon. The bandstand and room were filled with a who’s who of Southern California Roots and Blues musicians.  The dance floor was packed and the music was jumping. Nick Curran, this day’s headliner, was loading in. Phil Alvin was already in the house. The great harp player Mitch Kashmir was wandering around the room. Joey Delgado of the Delgado Brothers Band wasn’t on the bill but he also wanted to be at the ground zero of cool in Southern California on this sweltering hot, Indian Summer day.

Kirk Fletcher was getting ready to be called to the stage before the In and Out Burger called his number. Meanwhile Kid Ramos was in the spotlight bending strings as the band The 44’s were cooking up a slow Blues shuffle. Just then the birthday boy himself sidled up to me and asked me if I was having a good time. I turned to Art and said, “I feel like it is my birthday.”

Art Martel and his crew at Straight Up Blues Productions turned the VFW post in the middle of a sprawling industrial park into a 50’s era dance party Sunday, October 10, 2010. Actually, anytime you are at a VFW post you are in a turn back the clock mode. VFWs typically have 1940’s WW2 memorabilia, 1950’s haircuts and 1960’s bowling alley strength drinks.

All of this of course is fine by me. What got me out of Orange County and into the Valley was the music. Art put together a program that featured bands, and musicians, who in many cases were born in the 1970’s with fans of all ages who know what rockin’ swingin’ retro cool is all about. If you want to go back to the future you don’t have to look any further than Sunday’s star attraction, Nick Curran.

Nick Curran, like Kirk Fletcher, is in his early thirties and at one time they both played in a band as old as they are. These soul brothers literally grew up listening to the guitar of Jimmie Vaughan and as the years unfolded they both would stand on the same hallowed ground next to Kim Wilson and play together as members of the Fabulous Thunderbirds.

Here in California, not far from and at around the same time Kirk was born, two brothers were making their own noise. Phil, and younger brother Dave Alvin were playing their own brand of American music.  The Blasters played everything from Dave Alvin originals to Jimmy Reed tunes in front of 80’s L.A. Punk audiences who didn’t always know what to make of their “new” sounds.

As Vitapointe pompadours give way to expanding foreheads and male pattern baldness, young Nick returns the favor from the baby boomers by pushing the old music to new limits. Nick does it all with   T -Bone Walker meets the Ramones guitar swagger. He does it with Roscoe Gordon meets Wynonie Harris vocals and he does it all with his own distinctive musical persona. It was the intensity that Phil Alvin and the Blasters first brought to Southern California stages in the 1980’s that endeared the L.A Punk crowd to their Downey fresh sound. It is that same intensity Nick Curran brings to his performances these days.

Maybe the bridge that links the Phil Alvins and the Gen X crowd is Kid Ramos. He links the generational and cultural divide in much the same way the San Gabriel Valley connects the old neighborhoods of East Los Angeles to the new sub divisions of the Inland Empire. 

It was thirty years ago that David Ramos was playing guitar with the James Harman Band. Ramos was so young the “Kid” moniker seemed a natural fit. Ramos would, in the intervening years, sit in the guitar chair with the Fabulous Thunderbirds, make his own records that feature some of the best players on the West Coast scene and form a new band, Los Fabulocos. 

Fellow Fabulocans were in the house on this day as well. Drummer Mike Molina and bassist James Barrios were checking out L.A.’s own 44’s whose most recent album was produced and features guitarist Kid Ramos on some tracks.

Blaster and former Red Devil Bill Bateman sat in with the 44’s on drums. Former Red Devil bassist, Johnny Ray Bartel played as well. By this time there were Blasters, Red Devils and T-Birds all over the stage and in the audience.

The Memphis Kings got the dance floor warmed up for all this musical alchemy. They backed up veteran Harp player and vocalist Morey Sochat from Chicago. Another up and coming young band, who are performing to enthusiastic audiences and rave reviews all over the Southland, Lil A & the Allnighters opened the show. 

Before this night was over Nick Curran would share the spotlight with Phil Alvin as well as Orange County based singer Big Sandy. Sandy and his Fly Right Boys bring their own brand of Western Swing to young audiences, the way Bob Wills did at dances across California in the 1940’s and 50’s.

The American Blues and Roots music revival of the 80’s and 90’s didn’t seem so long ago this past Sunday. Many in attendance from fans like me to the artists directly responsible for the movement had a blast. They were there to see and play with the young men who could be the forerunners of the next revival. If there is a leader of the pack, it just might be Nick Curran.  

October 15^th, 2010 it became official. Long time Southern California Blues ambassador, Art Martel, turned fifty. Many of us have already hit that milestone. But regardless of age, thanks to Art we were able to turn back the clock and turn it forward at the same time. Art Martel showed us that the future of the Blues can indeed travel through its past without getting old.

- David Mac